Yesterday I read an article by a guy called Steve Manning about how to write a book. In particular he was talking about writing fiction and the crux of the article was about where to get a plot from.
His suggestion is to head down to the nearest used bookstore and trawl the shelves for a “bestseller”. He then recommends that you buy it, read it and if you liked the story, distil its plot down on a piece of paper and there you have it a plot. Then feel free to tweak time, place etc to get the theme of your story.
My first reaction was abject horror, surely that is simple theft? Then it occurred to me that actually when you think about it, there are only a handful of basic themes, forbidden love, the nobody destined to save the kingdom, the crime of passion etc., a theory suggested by Joseph Campbell (”The Hero has a thousand faces”), based on human pschological makeup. I mean, how many times has Romeo and Juliet been used as a plot? Sure it’s tweaked here and there but still people pay good money to see films and read books with the same basic plot?
So is Manning’s idea plagiarism, or just an honest suggestion of the process used by successful authors? Probably a bit of both, and with the recent Da Vinci case closed, perhaps it supports the fact that these guys who churn a book out every couple of years are going straight to the best source of stories to fast track their new income stream; the used book shop :).
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